The San Francisco calamity by earthquake and fire eBook

THE RESISTLESS MARCH OF THE FLAMES.

This was the region of the newspaper offices, and
they quickly succumbed. The Examiner, standing
across Third Street from Spreckles, collapsed from
the earthquake shock. A flimsy edifice, it had
long been looked upon as dangerous. Another building
in the rear of this alone resisted both flames and
smoke. Across Market Street from the Examiner
stood the Chronicle building, a dozen stories high.
Firmly built, it had borne the earthquake assault
unharmed, but the flames were an enemy against which
it had no defense, and it was quickly added to the
victims of the fire-fiend.

Farther down Market Street, the chief business thoroughfare
of the city, stood that great caravansary, the Palace
Hotel, which for thirty years had been a favorite
hostelry, housing the bulk of the visitors to the
Californian metropolis. Its time had come.
Doom hovered over it. Its guests had fled in
good season, as they saw the irresistible approach
of the conquering flames. Soon it was ablaze;
quickly from every window of its broad front the tongues
of flame curled hotly in the air; it became a thrice-heated
furnace, like so many of the neighboring structures,
adding its quota to the vast cloud of smoke that hung
over the burning city, and rapidly sinking in red
ruin to the earth.

All day Wednesday the fire spread unchecked, all efforts
to stay its devouring fury proving futile. In
the business section of the city everything was in
ruins. Not a business house was left standing.
Theatres crumbled into smouldering heaps. Factories
and commission houses sank to red ruin before the
devouring flames. The scene was like that of
ancient Babylon in its fall, or old Rome when set on
fire by Nero’s command, as tradition tells.
In modern times there has been nothing to equal it
except the conflagration at Chicago, when the flames
swept to ruin that queen city of the Great Lakes.

When night fell and the sun withdrew his beams the
spectacle was one at once magnificent and awe-inspiring.
The city resembled one vast blazing furnace.
Looking over it from a high hill in the western section,
the flames could be seen ascending skyward for miles
upon miles, while in the midst of the red spirals
of flame could be seen at intervals the black skeletons
and falling towers of doomed buildings. Above
all this hung a dense pall of smoke, showing lurid
where the flames were reflected from its dark and
threatening surface. To those nearer the scene
presented many pathetic and distressing features, the
fire glare throwing weird shadows over the worn and
panic-stricken faces of the woe-begone fugitives,
driven from their homes and wandering the streets
in helpless misery. Many of them lay sleeping
on piles of blankets and clothing which they had brought
with them, or on the hard sidewalks, or the grass
of the open parks.